Box Day, Part 1

This year has gotten off to a very trying, yet blessed, year. I don’t even know where to begin to explain when and where it seemed to be falling apart. We had been setting money aside each month to buy this year’s set of books for school. A few places along the way in late spring we ran into some things that “needed fixin’” that ate that money up. We began to worry about what to do. We threw our worries up in prayer and in a day or two we were given a link to a website to apply for scholarship/grant money for homeschoolers to buy curriculum.

We began reading about it and decided to go for it. The scary thing about it was that we wouldn’t know about it until time for ordering books was just about up to start at a decent time on the calendar. We filled out the forms, made copies of income statements, tax forms, listed our choice of curriculum, signed it in blood, stuffed all of that along with our first born child and some of my organs as required by the organization.

It was a long, painful wait to find out if we would be getting any of the scholarship and if so, how much. We got our letter 5 weeks after we applied and while grateful we only got half of what we would need. We felt a mixture of relief and remorse at the same time. Thrilled for the help at hand, but remorseful not knowing what to do now. Here we were just a couple of weeks out of the start of what I had planned to be our first day as well as near the day for the public school to start.

We really didn’t want to send our children back to the public school, for many reasons. Many of those are the same reasons we homeschool to begin with and many for other reasons, especially for some abuse our special needs daughter experienced. Trying to balance three at home and three in school was more than my sanity wanted to even fathom.

We decided that we would keep our minds and hearts open to the fact that maybe God wanted them in the local schools this year. This was hard to accept even the thought of doing so when this is what we wanted. Or what the children wanted.

I posted on facebook that it looked like we were going to have to send our Sonlight order back and put the children in the schools. The outpouring of ideas and wishes to help was wonderful. I had not expected that. I had expected words of encouragement about the schools, but I didn’t expect the encouragement to make it work. We began looking into other homeschooling styles and curricula and options. It was a very scary concept to make a change of that magnitude, one forced on us (read: me and my time) to buy what we would need with half of what we thought we could do it.

We pushed forward in faith that it would work out, that we were doing what God wanted our family to do. We proceeded to order what the oldest ones needed from Sonlight this year. August 7th became Box Day, part 1.

the first three boxes (taken on iPhone)

Moggiepillar will be using Sonlight‘s Core 200, Sonlight’s Schedule for Apologia Biology (woot! for dissection)via home and our homeschool co-op, Teaching Textbooks for math, and some other Literature and writing thrown in.

unpacked and ready to sort (taken on iPhone)

Mc will be using Sonlight’s Core 7 (World History Part 2); he did Core 6 (part 1)last year. He will be tackling Apologia’s General Science text this year via Sonlight’s schedule and our homeschool co-op. He is also using Teaching Textbooks for math, along with some other Literature and writing thrown in as well.

Oh, Look! Sonlight sent me a boy. (taken on iPhone)

It was hardest deciding what to do for Birdie. Already having Core 6 on our shelf this would have been the most economical choice but she has already had so much US History and a good bit of general world history and western history that we decided the focus on the Eastern Hemishpere would be the best fit for her. She has been very inquisitive lately of the Asian history and culture and she adores it so this is a good year to do this. Core 5 is extremely full we will have to work hard at making sure we don’t get all bogged down in it. She will also be using Sonlight’s Science 5 and Teaching Textbooks.

Where’d he go? (taken on iPhone)

Flynt will be using Sonlight’s core 1 with the advanced Reader’s 2 this year. His Language Arts, Math, and Critical Thinking skills tested well above a 5th grade level a few months ago, but he is still a 6-year old boy. Balancing his abilities with proper content can be challenging. We will probably push through the readers at a faster pace (whatever pace he sets) than Sonlight uses; I want to make sure that he doesn’t miss any important skills that might be left in the cracks because he can already do so much. Technically we don’t have to register him with the state until he is seven years of age. I used a very relaxed approach with him last year and I’m thrilled that he asked for more this year and we are really excited about moving ahead. This year we are going to give Horizons Math a try, but I am still not sure about this for him. I am second guessing this choice.

Ah, a perfect fit. (taken on iPhone)

Master Bairno will be going along for the ride although I have put together some Preschool 4/5 basics for him. We are going to do some loose handwriting skills this year. He writes really well for a three year old, but I have noticed some bad habits I want to break now instead of later. Simple practice and reminding the of the correct way to do some things is all he needs.

Race Cars! Airplanes! Speed Boats! I see a theme here. (taken on iPhone)

Lottie, being our special needs child, will be working along with her brother, Flynt (for the most part). Teaching a special needs child whose retention levels are so very hard to measure can be a real struggle. We never want to leave her out of anything, but the reality is there are some things she just can not do. We always allow her to try and encourage her as much as we can. We teach to mastery in this house, no one moves on to the next thing until they show mastery. This often means a lot of repetition with Lottie. We are having to rethink a few of these philosophies with Lottie. She can not always show us she has mastered something via testing. Often times her tests are worked into life
skills. I really need to write a post just about her and teaching her. So look for that in the near future if you are curious about teaching a child with special needs.

all sorted and ready for shelving and use; this photo has notes on flickr